Baci Baci from Gubbio

Things escalated as I left the International Dinner: I decided I was going to head home after the limbo started. I mean I love limbo as much as the next slightly irritating British tourist, but it doesn't mean I can do it, and I certainly can't do it if I'm wearing a non-elasticated skirt without showing a lot more than I intended.

So I left the party. My friends did not. In fact as we met at the school the following morning, there were quite a few dark-glasses-wearing individuals that were avoiding loud noises and Lynette had some suspiscious scabs on her knees. I quizzed her about this at break time.
'Have a little accident did you?'
'Just a little one.'
'Was it by any chance limbo related?'
'Maybe...'

It turned out things had got pretty rowdy and Lynette, being quite tall, was at a limbo disadvantage and paid thr price with a fall in the last round. Occupational hazard.

That afternoon we were going on another outing. It was week three and I was a little bored of these outings. We'd been to so many places, seen so many churches, had lectures about the Roman conquest of this and the Renaissance revival of that and I was getting a teensy-weensy bit tired of it all. I did hate myself for it - I was in Italy, supposedly living la dolce vita and all I could think of was where I could stop off for a coffee and lose the enthusiastic tour guide.

Gubbio was Roman at some point. The aforementioned tour guide was loving life and going on and on and on and on about why it was so Roman (frankly with the dirty great ampitheatre it wasn't a surprise) and so I kind of stopped listening. Bree and I instead found a more fun pursuit - pretending to be Roman. I don't mean that we adopted the tortoise formation and wore red skirts under our formidable armour - we just pretended to look Roman with our expressions and then take a picture in front of the Roman relic to adorn Facebook - it was a good idea at the time...

After this entertaining chapter of my life, we moved on to a church: I'll do my surprised face, oh wait, I don't have one... That day I happened to be committing a heinous crime in that not only were my provocative knees on show, but my alluring shoulders were as well. It was a mutual decision therefore not to enter the church and so I sat outside looking grumpy with Susan. I wasn't actually grumpy, but after sitting in a coach for over an hour, looking briefly Roman, and the prospect of more uninteresting culture to absorb, all I wanted was that coffee.

Apart from being vaguely Roman, Gubbio was famous for another reason. The town was on two levels and at the top was a quaint old town overlooking the Umbrian plains. Nestled within the backstreets was a well - supposedly a magic well. Yeah, I rolled my eyes too. I think the story went something like, if you visited Gubbio and you didn't want to get mad (as in crazy, not angry) then you had to run round the well seven times. Many, many of my coursemates gave this a go; Susan and I found a Vespa and took pictures of each other on it. We both shared the same feelings of apathy at this point in the course and though we enjoyed visiting new places, taking part in the ridiculous traditions was maybe a step too far.

I was getting on really well with Susan and Lynette; Gaby had cooled off again; and Bree was going through a bit of a rough patch so was cooling off with everyone. Basically her boyfriend was being a bit of an idiot and there was very little we could say to make her feel better about this so she turned to one of the Brazilian guys for a friendly shoulder to moan on. We were still all friends, but I think Bree was suffering from the 'Afternoon at the Pool' syndrome and really wanted some time to herself.

One of the other attractions of Gubbio was a cable car up to the top of the hill on which it resides. Normally I love a good cable car, a beautiful view, and a bit of banter on the way, but on that particular day I really couldn't be bothered. Neither could Susan. The others all wanted to go on the cable car ride, but I could think of a better way to spend 7Eur.

Susan and I went back down to the lower town and found a cafe - admittedly it was quite an expensive cafe, but my 7 Euros were much better off spent on a cup of coffee, a brioche and chats with Susan. We'd formed quite a formidable team in Wendy's classes and when it came to dull lectures all about culture, we shared a very similar viewpoint.

The others returned from their excursion in desperate need of a drink themselves, so they joined us at the cafe for a spot of something before the bus came to take us back to Camerino. They'd enjoyed it, but the enjoyment probably wasn't worth 7Eur and, like the afternoon at the pool, they were kind of regretting not going for the simple option.

We went home that evening after having enjoyed the day, not for the culture, but for the chance to spend it in good company.

Later on that week I emailed my friends and family telling them about my trip to Gubbio and signed off 'baci baci' - kisses. My parents picked up on this: baci baci from Gubbio? Are you secretly in Liverpool?

I said though it sounded like it, I wasn't...